4 Ways to Innovate Through a Recession
Uncertain times can be big opportunities to spark new ideas that future-proof your biz. Learning from the past enables us to prepare for and shape the future so we often look back to help brands speed ahead.
1. Assess the Impact
Understanding how a downturn (actual or anticipated!) impacts your customers’ behavior dictates how to focus limited resources so you can do more (or just as much) with less.
Coffee lovers’ feedback circa 2008 inspired Starbucks to launch their very first value offerings and first crowdsourcing with "My Starbucks Idea” (garnering more than 150,000 new ideas in a decade). It also sparked development of breakthrough products like Starbucks VIA and Starbucks Refreshers.
“We need to put ourselves in the shoes of our customers,” Schultz said at the time. “That is my new battle cry. Live and breathe Starbucks the way our customers do.”
How can you live and breathe your brand? How will you get to know your customers better so you can act on their changing needs?
2. Find Your North Star
Play-Doh was a fledgling wallpaper cleaner before it was repositioned as a squishable way to shape your imagination when faced with an economic slowdown and changing consumer behavior in 1953. Seventy years later, it’s still a favorite toy keeping kids creative around the globe.
As brands prepare for what's ahead, the best envision the future and their place it in with a positioning strategy that confirms a consumer promise and a unique experience to keep it.
We recently helped our CORE Foods clients prepare for the future with a powerful, new positioning that “raises the bar” to reclaim their leadership position in the snack space.
How can you position your brand for success today and tomorrow? How can you better convey not just what it sells, but also what it stands for?
3. Collaborate or Co-Create
Downturns are notorious for inspiring successful, new tie-ins. Our favorite is when LEGO "thought beyond the bricks" and made the first breakthrough licensing deal with Star Wars to drive double-digit sales during the Great Recession.
Other, more recent collabs created playful combos to give legacy brands a boost from Kraft-Val Leeuwen mac & cheese ice cream to Justin’s and Athletic Brewing’s PB porter-style Nature Nut.
Which unlikely or surprising collaborations will you create for new, newsworthy offerings? If you're a CPG brand, how can you show up in restaurants? If you're a food brand, how might you show up in the fashion world?
4. Ensure Efficiency to Invest
Our Cin7 clients recently brought their three market-leading brands together under one umbrella to leverage team resources. With a branded house, Cin7 can offer customers inventory and order management solutions across categories so small businesses can compete globally and invest more in their expert partner program too.
Independent Power recently acquired Windward Electric to expand from solar and storage to EV chargers and whole-home electrification. They're leveraging digital tools to automate ops and checking in with vendors to negotiate better pricing for everything from raw materials to payroll and IT so they can invest more in new offerings and digital media.
How can you simplify and streamline ops costs so you can invest in the future? How can you maintain brand-building spend while others cut back to build long-term demand?